Today

I had a pretty powerful experience at church today. I know, I know. The word experience is taboo in our conservative, evangelical, anti-seeker-sensitive theology, but I'm going to redeem it. As Christians we are to experience God as much as we are to know him and meditate on him. My worship leader has been on vacation and so I've been blessed to be able to lead worship the past two sundays and next sunday. Today, was an awesome sunday leading worship. We did a welcome song and then, after praying, we did a responsive reading of Psalm 136 which I think really set the tone for the rest of the meeting. Then we did a few more songs leading up to communion (which we celebrate every week). During communion we did "Rock of Ages" by Sandra McCracken which turned out great. But that's not why the meeting was amazing. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but God inhabited the praises of his people this morning. I had a power behind my voice that I didn't have during practice or warm-up. The music all came together really well. No one really messed up. And we all blended together, music and voices, almost seamlessly. And all of this, combined with the scripture and prayer, served to usher God's people into his presence this morning. As I look back over the past few weeks when the set came together in my mind and selecting songs and thinking about what I was going to say and pray about, I can see God working in all of it. A few weeks ago, we sang the song "Forever" by Chris Tomlin which is based off of Ps. 136. It was at that time that I decided to do the responsive reading and that song this week. Last week, I introduced the song "Mighty to Save" by Hillsong and I did it again this week to get the congregation familiar with it, which worked perfectly as a follow-up to "Forever." Throughout this week I had been trying to think of another song to do in between "Mighty to Save" and "One Thing" by Charlie Hall, but God restrained me and led me to keep the song list shorter than normal, which I think served to keep our minds more focused on God, rather than on the music. Then, yesterday I read something in "Vintage Jesus" that served as a perfect transition between "Mighty to Save" and "One Thing" and God brought it to mind to use in prayer in that transition.

All that to say that this sunday was totally not about me. It wasn't put together by me, it wasn't orchestrated by me, and it didn't come from the power of Darren and it didn't usher us into the presence of Darren, but it was from God, through God, and to God, and God got all the glory from today. I was truly blessed to be his instrument today. And from the responses I got after church it appears that God did truly bless his people through my pitiful leading. And that's what it was. I didn't lead today. God led. He led us to his throne on which sits the king of glory, Jesus Christ and we saw God today, reflected in the face of Christ. I guess that's all I can hope for as a worship leader and all I pray for for next week. I hope all of you had an equally blessed, if not more, Sunday.